


Prison beasts

by mythicalwheel



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, M/M, Prison, Slurs, Violence, rhink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:22:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11113128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalwheel/pseuds/mythicalwheel
Summary: So I don’t really know much about the prison system in the US. I just got inspired by Rhett's cover of Folsom Prison Blues, and had to write this.All feedback is greatly appreciated!





	Prison beasts

**Author's Note:**

> So I don’t really know much about the prison system in the US. I just got inspired by Rhett's cover of Folsom Prison Blues, and had to write this.
> 
> All feedback is greatly appreciated!

It was the early winter of 2005. The cold North Carolina weather was pushing through the washed-out yellow brick walls of Harnett Correctional Institution. The inmates had given up on complaining about it years earlier, and nowadays just gritted their teeth and became even louder than usual to combat the coldness. They kept picking fights with each other just to have something to do and something to yell about. A part in many of these fights was Rhett McLaughlin. A big guy with deep eyes and a scary beard. At least that was how people saw him. Either stone cold or filled with anger. Rhett was well respected within the prison community of Harnett Correctional, and carried himself with a quiet toughness. A quietness only broken by angry outbursts to blow off steam when prison life got tough.

That day in the early winter of 2005, Rhett was running laps in the courtyard of the prison. Around him stood tall fences, doubled and topped with barbed wire. Keeping him in a prison of his own thoughts, within a literal prison. Thoughts he was running from as his feet crashed into the sloppy snow covering the ground. It splashed up his bare legs, and he cursed himself for choosing to exercise in shorts. As if he had read his thoughts, another inmate yelled at Rhett as he passed him. “You’re damn stupid, McLaughlin. You’re gonna get frostbite!” Rhett recognized the voice as the one belonging to his friend, Richard Smith, and raised a middle finger in response. Rusty laughs followed him as he kept running.

As Rhett approached the bench where Smith and his other friends were sitting, he slowed down. He came to a halt in front of them, heaving for his breath and fighting the urge to puke. “Not bad, brother. Thirty laps in eight minutes, and on a shitty day like this,” Smith snickered. “One of these days you’ll beat that nigger Dayton.” Rhett shot him a smile through gritted teeth. The other men in the group laughed. “Y’all are fucking idiots,” he murmured and grabbed his jacket from beside Smith. The smile still lingered on his face.

The conversation journeyed, as it had done every day for the past week, to the release of John Seger. Seger had been Smith’s bunkmate for the past year and a half, but was at the end of his sentence and only days away from being a free man. It was a bittersweet topic for everyone in the gang. They were all crazy envious, but happy for their friend. “Seger, what are you doing when you get out?” Rhett asked the man on the other side of Smith.

“I think I’m gonna go live with my brother for a while. He’s got an apartment in Dunn, maybe I can get a job around there.”

“Sounds good, man. I’m gonna be enjoying having the cell to myself.” Smith said.

“Don’t count on that. I heard they are bringing in new inmates real soon. The prisons ‘round here are overflowing with niggers.” Seger spat at the ground at the last word and squinted his eyes to look around the yard. Rhett rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet. He knew prison was a shitty place to voice opinions about racism.

“Well, then I hope my new bunkmate won’t be a fuckwad like you.” Smith said with a cocked smile. Seger looked at him with fake offend. “You didn’t complain when I was sucking your dick last night.”

“Fucking faggots,” A fourth man in the group said, and was shot big smiles by both Smith and Seger. “Just wait till you’ve been here another month, and you won’t be any different.”

Rhett ignored the conversation that was going on and let his eyes wander around the courtyard. Beyond the fence, he could see the road leading up to the prison. A grey van was driving on it, coming closer before stopping by the gates. Rhett followed it with his eyes as it was granted access and drove through to where all the prison vans stopped. An armed guard stepped out of the passenger’s seat and walked around to the side out of view of Rhett. “Seger, when did you say the new prisoners were coming?” Rhett asked his friend.

“I didn’t. D’ you think that’s them?” He nodded towards the van.

“Looks like it, the others are heading over to look too.”

Rhett stood up from the bench and walked across the yard to the fence dividing them from the van. The outside area of the prison was divided into two big yards surrounded by fences, one for each of the two main sections. Between the yards were a road that was only ever used for two things. Visitation and transporting prisoners in and out.  Since it was Friday and not a visiting day, everyone were curious to see who the new inmates were. Rhett leaned his forearms against the fence and looked through it at the guards and the car. It made him think of the first and last time he had sat in it, almost five years earlier. He remembered the sinking feeling he had felt as he realized all the things that fucking prison van represented. In a way he felt for the men he still could not see through the car, but bitterly remembered that none of them probably had fucked up as bad as he had. That to them, the prison van merely represented a minor bump in the road that is life. And he hated them for that.

One after one, the new inmates exited the car. Rhett watched them closely, tried to analyze their expressions and body language. They were already dressed in the grey prison uniforms, and handcuffed behind their backs. The other prisoners were yelling and whistling, trying to intimidate the newcomers. Tried to show them their place in the hierarchy that existed within the prison. Rhett stayed silent, but glared at them with intense eyes. Two men walked out of the car first. They looked like the typical inmates, and Rhett did not take much notice of them. Then, a third man exited. A man that to Rhett looked so out of place. He felt his breath hitch in his throat. Shock filled his entire body as he watched his best friend since first grade being escorted into the hellhole he knew as Harnett Correctional Institution. His name filled his mouth, and Rhett wanted to yell it. Wanted the tall brunet to turn around. To see Rhett and feel some of the same things that he was feeling in that moment. But the man’s gaze was fixated at the entrance to the prison, and he did not turn around. And as Rhett opened his mouth to let the name out, it vanished into a weak whisper.

_“Link.”_


End file.
